Overview of the World Geocoding Service

The World Geocoding Service finds addresses and places in all supported countries from a single endpoint. The service can find point locations of addresses, business names, and so on. The output points can be visualized on a map, inserted as stops for a route, or loaded as input for a spatial analysis. Specifically, the service is capable of the following operations:

• Finding an address using a single input field—Type an address, point of interest, place name or other supported location as a single string ("380 New York St, Redlands, CA") and the service returns a coordinate pair representing the address ("-117.1956, 34.0576"). Interacting with a single search field is typically easiest for users.
• Finding an address using multiple input fields—Type an address, point of interest, or other supported location as multiple strings (Address: "380 New York St", City: "Redlands", Region: "CA", Postal: "92373") and the service returns a coordinate pair representing the address ("-117.1956, 34.0576"). The advantages of multifield geocoding include faster responses and more precise results than single field geocoding.
• Geocoding a table of addresses (batch geocoding)—Send a table containing several single- or multiple-input-field addresses, and the service returns coordinate pairs for each address in the table.
• Finding the address of an xy location (reverse geocoding)—Send a coordinate pair, or xy location, and the service returns the nearest address as text. Reverse geocoding is useful for applications in which a user clicks a map and expects the address of that location to be returned.

The spatial reference of the world geocoding service is World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84).

Match accuracy and output fields

The accuracy of the addresses returned by the service and the fields included in the response are described here.

Service coverage

The countries for which the service provides addresses are listed here.